


Snake On The Tracks

by teacupsandcyanide



Category: Runemarks Series - Joanne Harris
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pub/Bar, Basically some verbal harrassment and a foot on a leg, Cameos from just about every character, F/M, Loki wears jewellery - try to change my mind, Mature rating is for aforementioned harassment themes and language, Rescuing You From a Creep By Pretending To Be Your Partner Trope but subverted, Warning for sexual harrassment content, alternate universe - modern AU, although one of Loki's shortest lines is lifted from it as reference, no spoilers for Testament of Loki, nonbinary Loki, nothing incredibly traumatic but pretty damn nasty behaviour, oblique references to Gospel of Loki, references to Runemarks and Runelight content, references to past abusive relationship (maggie/adam), the pub AU that no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 04:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15721641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandcyanide/pseuds/teacupsandcyanide
Summary: “I really wouldn’t piss her off, if I were you. She’s got a mean left hook.”Adam looked almost equally taken aback as Maddy felt. “Who the hell are you?”The newcomer laughed, and somehow managed to make it sound both pleasant and aggressive. “I would be Loki. Her boyfriend, and by the way, bartender here and really not a fan of your tone.”And that was when the night went from bad to just wild.-Or; the time Maddy went to a new pub to meet up with her sister, but instead met her sister's awful ex-boyfriend, and was saved from being arrested for justifiable homicide by a nosy redhead with a knack for showmanship.





	Snake On The Tracks

**_where are u? i'm at the pub_ **

_Sorry, Maddy, the train’s stopped. They say it’ll be just another five minutes, there’s a snake on the track._

**_hilarious maggie._ **

_No, really. There’s a snake on the track._

**_how the bloody hell does a snake get into the underground??_ **

_Don’t ask me, I’m not the snake on the track._

 

...

**_Maggie I’ve finished my first drink hurry up_ **

_I can’t control it! They said it would be another five minutes._

**_they said that twenty minutes ago_ **

_Well, they just said it again._

 

...

**_how long can it take to get rid of one snake_ **

_Another five minutes, according to the announcer._

 

...

_Maddy. You know emoticons don’t show up on my phone, I’ve told you. There’s no point trying to send them to me._

Maddy swore under her breath yet again, shoving her phone into her pocket and cursing her sister’s stupid and unwavering loyalty to her old shitbrick Nokia. She had been nursing her second cider for nearly forty-five minutes now, and it was starting to go unpleasantly lukewarm in the hot and crowded air of the pub.

She hated coming into the inner city. Any appeal it had once had for the wide-eyed, fourteen-year-old Maddy of the past had quickly worn off in the seven or so years she had been living in it. On some level she didn’t think her country-born-and-bred bones would ever really adjust to it. The sounds were always phenomenally overwhelming, and the people just as rude as they were wont to be back home in Malbry, only far greater in number and harder to avoid. The people crowded up the air and made it harder to breathe, and the great concrete and glass towers crowded up the sky and made it harder to see. She wouldn’t come into the inner city at all if it weren’t for Maggie and how much _she_ loved the stupid place, and how much Maddy herself loved her sister.

Resisting the urge to deplete her phone battery any further, Maddy took another begrudging sip of her drink as she surveyed the pub. She was currently squashed into a booth at the back, edged as far into it as possible and exercising an old talent – people-watching. She enjoyed people-watching, but preferred doing so from a distance, (the better to remain unseen and undisturbed), and here amongst the sweaty, chattering throng she was anything but at a distance. Man United were playing City on the flickering telly screwed up into a ceiling corner at the far end of the pub, around which gathered a ruddy-faced and happily rowdy group of sports-fans. The telly also had the more covert attention of a tall woman who was doing her best to look invested in what the man opposite her was saying, nodding and ferrying a rhythmic succession of chips into her mouth as her eyes darted between his face and the football game. Across the table, her older date pushed the dislocated pieces of his fish around his plate, nervously streaming at the mouth about something that sounded like it had to do with sustainable fish farming practices. Immediately behind them and in immediate contrast sat another couple, who looked, to Maddy’s eyes, disgustingly infatuated with each other. They were currently engaged in tenderly feeding each other portions of their tofu burgers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pub, a bearded man was wolfing down a plate of spare ribs, blissfully unaware of the daggers his pretty blonde wife was glaring at him over her tersely sipped glass of white wine – Maddy had noticed them when she came in, and she had also noticed that like herself, the woman was already on her second glass.

Elsewhere were larger groups in booths like her own, though there seemed to be very little interesting about them to watch at all – with the exception of a man and a woman who looked like they could be twins and seemed to be bickering about who had slept with whose office crush. Up at the barstools, two heavy-set men were courageously attempting to argue about who was going to win the match while simultaneously consuming an enormous amount of chicken vindaloo. As she watched them, Maddy caught the glinting blue eye of the barkeep, who was half-turned away from her. He was an older man, his dark skin like lined and scarred leather – he reminded Maddy of the weathered old sea boats she had seen docked at Brighton once on a school trip. With a shiver she realised he had been watching her watch his pub for some time, even as he relaxed behind the bar with one lean, strong hand resting on the beer tap handle, like a captain holding the wheel of a great ship steady. Maddy coloured belatedly, but was unwilling to avert her eyes – she had, she thought defiantly, just as much right to spy on his customers as he did, especially if she had to sit here for god knows how long waiting for her guest of honour to make an appearance.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she jumped and broke the gaze of the barkeep.

_The snake still hasn’t been removed. The announcer has finally admitted it might be another twenty minutes. Sorry for ruining the night._

Maddy grimaced. Her sister got like this on occasion; unpredictably and suddenly self-recriminatory. Even after four years, she seemed to find it hard not to be self-conscious whenever something went awry, always reverting to the uncertain and tentative brand of awkwardness that had coloured their early friendship. Maddy hated it when Maggie fell back into that, not the least because she’d found out very quickly that seeing her sister upset gave her a strong desire to punch the person responsible. It reminded Maddy uncomfortably that they weren’t like other sisters. They had, by unfortunate birth and unfortunate circumstance, been forced to build their relationship up from the ground, by hand, and much later in the game than others.

**_Don’t be stupid_** , Maddy started to type out, then hastily erased that. **_Don’t be silly_** , she revised, then stopped again, her thumb hovering over the screen. Looking back later, it was in this moment, dithering and frustrated, that she really and truly lost control of the night. She was never sure whom to blame, in the years to come. She wanted to blame herself, for being so absorbed in her texts that she didn’t see him coming. A part of her, somewhat irrational, wanted to blame Maggie for falling back into her old insecurities yet again. Usually though, she settled for blaming the snake on the tracks, because without it her sister would have already been at the stupid pub in the stupid city, and she wouldn’t have had a stupid run-in with that stupid, stupid man, and every stupid thing that had followed wouldn’t have happened at all.

“Well, hello there.” Those words, along with the hand creeping down around her shoulders, were the first things that announced his presence.

Maddy tensed immediately, the familiar voice ringing alarm bells in her head. She locked her phone and plunged it into her pocket before he could see whom she was texting.

“Get off me,” she said evenly, keeping her eyes on the table top.

“Alright, chill out.” The hand disappeared from her shoulders, but across from her someone rustled into the other side of the booth, his feet brushing against hers to a frankly unnecessary extent. A fresh pint of frothy beer appeared at the edge of her vision.

Maddy clenched her hand around her phone and lifted her head to meet his eyes with the fiercest look she could muster. The hatred in her gaze must have made an impression, because the man across from her visibly recoiled for a moment before he forced a slimy grin onto his pale, sneering face.

“Woah there. Talk about if looks could kill.” He was, probably, a good-looking man, blonde and symmetrical in the face. Maddy had never found him at all palatable, and she had known him for longer than she ever cared to.

“Adam,” she said, as calmly as she could manage to while sitting barely a foot away from him, “If I were you, I’d get away from me before something painful happens to your balls.”

Adam seemed to digest this information, doubt flickering in his eyes. Then he leaned forwards with another hungry grin, looking rather like a hunter who had decided to pursue a bear precisely because it might kill him, and because its head would look all the more marvellous on his wall for it. Maddy felt another surge of pure, burning hatred at the darting, daring sort of insolence in eyes. It had all the unpleasant, far from playful sneakiness that she had always despised in him, even when Maggie had been dating him.

“Easy there,” he said, his voice light and taunting. “Just saying hello to an old friend. Didn’t think I’d ever see you in this part of town. Isn’t it all a bit modern and happening for you?” He laughed, a narrow, sharp noise to Maddy’s ears. “I would have thought you’d prefer, I dunno ... Some old witch cabin back in the country.”

“I mean it,” said Maddy, though her voice quivered with rage, and she hated that; she hated that he made her this angry and that he knew it and that he still had the gall, after everything he had said and done, to sit across from her and play at old school-yard classmates. “Get out of this pub, and leave me alone, or I will cut your fucking dick off.”

“Woah!” Adam said again, throwing up both hands in a mocking offer of peace. He smirked easily at her, “Play nice, Maddy. You can’t have a go at me here.”

“Sure I can, I’m a regular,” she lied. “See that barkeep? Friend of mine. He won’t bat an eye if I want to beat you to pulp. Especially seeing as you deserve it.”

She kept her eyes hard on Adam, watching as his flickered uncertainly to the old barkeep, then back to her smugly.

“What’s his name then?”

Maddy faltered for barely a second, and the documentary she had watched the night before on Australian mining and Aboriginal land rights flashed through her head in an inexplicable and rather stupid moment of panic. “Perth.”

Adam snickered, a sound which had haunted her school days, and which now grated against her nerves. “Right. Sure.”

All at once Maddy wished she had already ordered food just so she had a knife at her disposal, and was almost immediately thankful that she didn’t. She had enough scuffles on her record; she didn’t need to add a pub brawl to them. Adam seemed to know this, and he smiled slowly across the booth at her in a newly unpleasant way that made her skin crawl. Under the table she felt something brush against her leg, and she jumped. Adam smiled wider, and leaned forwards again.

“You know,” he said quietly, “you and Maggie really do look alike.”

Frozen, Maddy stared at him, her blood pounding in her ears. She was so furious, so full of hate and outrage and disgust that she could barely think, barely hear what he was saying, only knowing that he was revelling in the power he was holding over her, and feeling further infuriated by that.

“It was always kind of hot. Whenever she and I were together. It was just like fucking you, only if you did everything I wanted you to instead of acting like such a mangy dog.” His foot moved up and down her leg, while her whole body clenched with rage. “Shame you’re still like that now. Feral and looking for something to bite. I’ll give you something to bite.” He tilted his head, as if an idea had just occurred to him. “Hey, she’s not coming here, is she? Is that why you’re here?” He laughed again, in the same unpleasantly languid way that his foot was stroking her ankle. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you two together. If you know what I mean.”

Maddy found her voice. “I’m going to say it one last time. I told you three years ago. Stay away from my sister, and stay away from me, or I will ... I’ll ...” she choked on her anger, losing her ability to even articulate it, her mind full of nothing but the white-hot colour of her own hatred.

“Or you’ll what?” He was looking relaxed now, practically unconcerned. “You’re full of the same old empty threats. You won’t do anything. You didn’t do anything back then to help her either –”

In quick concession, there was a crash, and then a thud, and the salt and pepper stand on the table was knocked over, and Maddy realised suddenly that she had stood and slammed both hands on the tabletop in front of Adam. Then, immediately following this realisation, was the second realisation that she was no longer standing alone, and there was a warm hand in the square of her back.

“Is there a problem, Maddy?”

She looked to her side and saw a stranger looking at her with what seemed to be sincere concern in their bright green eyes.

“What?” she said dumbly, confused by the sudden appearance of this apparition, who was a lot to take in in one sudden look. They had androgynous and undeniably pretty, sharp boyish features and vividly red hair, currently tied back from their face. Throughout their hair, bright beads peeped and winked, braided in amongst the red cowlicks. They were dressed in the same plain black shirt and dark-wash jeans as the barkeep, an apron slung low around their narrow hips, though they had considerably more ear-piercings than the barkeep did, and were significantly younger.

They had turned to her aggressor now, looking unimpressed. “I really wouldn’t piss her off, if I were you. She’s got a mean left hook.”

Adam looked almost equally taken aback as Maddy felt. “Who the fuck are you?”

The newcomer laughed, and somehow managed to make it sound both pleasant and aggressive. “I would be Loki. Her boyfriend, and by the way, bartender here and really not a fan of your tone.”

And that was when the night went from bad to just _wild_. His hand was still resting in the square of her back, as if it had found a familiar and natural place there. Maddy couldn’t speak, and wasn’t sure if it was because she was shocked into silence by this new development or because, now that her anger had been confused into oblivion, she felt like her knees were going to give out underneath her from sheer nausea. Adam was staring between the two of them, and Maddy had no idea if her utter bewilderment was showing on her face.

The bartender, Loki, caught her eye. “Is there a problem, Mads?” he asked again, and this time their eyes locked.

As she looked back at him, Maddy saw something behind the front of concern. It was not something gentle, or kind, or particularly courageous. It was, however, something that reassured her to her core for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was clever, and full of guile, and a surprising amount of warmth, and most importantly it was something familiar that reminded her of some indefinable quality she had seen before, but only when looking in the mirror.

“Yes,” she said, and felt the strength come back to her legs. “This bastard is pissing me off.”

The familiar thing in Loki’s eyes seemed to wink back at her in silent amusement, as he said matter-of-factly, “Well, we can’t have that. I know you’re good at landing people in hospital but you always feel so guilty afterwards. It’s a real hassle.”

“Um, hang on, I’m sorry,” interrupted Adam, not sounding sorry at all, but rather like a child who had just had his favourite toy snatched away from him and wanted to know just who had snatched it and how long they planned to play with it. “You’re her boyfriend?”

“I know,” replied Loki, throwing an easy grin Maddy’s way, “people always tell me I’m lucky.”

Maddy felt her mouth start to smile, automatically returning the grin, when Adam interrupted again.

“Her boyfriend?” he repeated more incredulously. “Mangy Maddy has a boyfriend?”

Just as Maddy’s fists curled again, the hand that had been resting on her back slipped around her waist and pulled her in towards Loki, securing her to his side, hip to hip. Maddy was under no illusion that she was being anything other than held back, but the surprise of it certainly dislodged the anger rising in her.

“So you know how I said earlier, that I really wouldn’t piss her off?” Loki’s tone was still light, but there was something rather pointed about it now. “That goes for me too.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Adam said again, as if this time it would sound any more genuine, “but you can’t be serious. I went to school with her. She’s a crazy bitch. Everyone knew it.”

Maddy felt Loki’s gaze flick towards her, and she lifted her chin, determined not to look hurt. Whatever he saw there, he said nothing, but she felt his eyes travel back to Adam, and when she glanced at him she saw that he was looking at her old bully with an odd, difficult to decipher expression; fiery and ice cold at the same time, amused and full of contempt. “You didn’t seem to mind when you were groping her earlier,” he said.

Adam flushed with colour, looking away, and Loki took the opportunity to continue, leaning one hand down on the table-top to speak to Adam in a quiet, menacingly friendly voice. “Listen, _mate_ ,” the word sounded sharply mocking on Loki’s tongue, “I’ve worked here for years. See that guy at the bar? He owns the place. Now he likes me, and he likes Maddy. He doesn’t like snotty little gobshites who crowd up the place and harass the regulars. So I’d suggest you sling your hook, so to speak, before he comes around to have a nice little chat. Because believe me, if there’s one guy in here you really don’t want to piss off, it’s the General.”

Adam had paled considerably over the course of this speech, but still he clung to the vestiges of a sneer. “The General?”

“That would be on account of the, ah ...” Loki seemed to be searching for a delicate turn of phrase. “The troops.” He rapped a three-knock pattern out on the hard tabletop, cutting sharply above the chatter and bustle of the pub.

All at once, as if under a magic spell, the crowd fell silent. All heads turned towards their little corner booth in the back. The loving couple stopped eating their tofu burgers and turned their conjoined gaze to the back booth. The man and his pretty wife both looked up from their dinner, the man’s friendly eyes narrowing with sudden aggravation. The woman who had been watching the game turned to look at their booth with such a look of intense hatred that Maddy nearly made a sound of surprise. The woman’s date followed her gaze and his own eyes hardened when he saw where she was looking. The crowd of men around the television turned and stared, as did the pair of men at the bar, all facing towards Adam in one unified and brutal hostile force. Lastly, the barkeep turned fully towards them, and Maddy saw that he was missing one eye, and his remaining one was fixed upon Adam with all the icy chill of a winter storm. It was this almost cartoonish last touch that seemed to make Adam snap. He jumped out of his seat with a mumbled swearword, suddenly scrambling to get out of the booth.

“What the fuck ...” He was hurrying himself into the jacket he had apparently deposited on the seat beside him, and dropped it in his haste. Casting a deeply unnerved glance around the pub but avoiding any one set of eyes, he fumbled for his jacket and for a handful of change for his pint.

“Don’t forget the tip,” Loki prodded him cheerfully.

“Fucking Christ ...” Adam was muttering to himself, “You people are fucking crazy ...” He slammed a note down on the table, made to leave, and was pulled back by Loki, who put his hand out.

“And another for bothering my girl, I think,” he said with a very sharp, very threatening smile.

Adam darted an ugly look at Maddy, and for a moment seemed to take issue with this. Then he looked around the pub of unfriendly faces still staring at him, radiating immense dislike, and seemed to think better of it. He dropped another handful of change in Loki’s palm.

“There,” he spat, and threw on his jacket finally.

“Ah-ah-ah ...”

Adam stopped again; Loki was counting the coins out.

“There’s not enough here for Perth,” he said, nodding towards the barkeep, who was still glaring at them with his one eye. “He wants his own tip.”

That made Adam stare in disbelief. “His name really is Perth?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Loki replied nonchalantly.

“Jesus fucking ...” Adam dug into his pocket, and with a shaky hand spilled out a fistful of coins and notes. They fell onto the table and the floor in a chinking, rolling clatter, and Loki made no move to catch them.

“Pick them up,” he said with another toothy smile, looking very much like the proverbial cat who had gotten the proverbial mouse to shit its pants.

Adam spluttered something but went down on hands and knees to pick up every dropped coin and push it down onto the table top.

“Very good,” Loki said, then turned pleasantly to Maddy. “Do you want to do the honours, darling?”

Maddy, who had been watching the entire display with stunned delight, bent slightly to look down at Adam, still kneeling on the floor.

“Get out of here, Adam,” she said, her voice hard. He looked up at her with wild eyes, angry despite his fear, hating that she towered over him. He had always looked at her like that. “And if you come near me or my sister again, I swear you won’t be so lucky.”

Adam, this time, did not need telling twice. He scrambled to his feet and fled the length of the pub, flying out the door and leaving it banging behind him. In his wake he left a tense silence, and the pub still stared down at Maddy and Loki by the deserted booth. Then a hoarse but strong voice sounded at the bar, a voice accustomed to speaking over crowds and being heard.

“Show’s over,” said the barkeep, dropping his own gaze to the glass he was polishing. “Back to your business.”

The pub, exactly as if it were one legion army commanded by this one-eyed pirate of a general, resumed its own occupations. The two men at the bar ordered another round, the couple in the loved-up booth picked up their shared spoon and fork, and the bearded man’s wife prodded him into passing her the salt. The tall woman threw one last scornful look Maddy and Loki’s way and then returned – with some reluctance, Maddy noticed – to attempting to listen to her date’s conversation. Chatter in general began to resume, along with the scrape and clatter of cutlery, plates, and glasses.

No longer under the scrutiny of the entire establishment, Maddy looked at Loki and found that he was still counting coins out, as if rousing a small army to throw out one measly git in a perhaps unnecessarily humiliating way was something he did on a regular basis.

Maddy suppressed a shudder at the memory of Adam’s foot stroking her leg, half-wishing that she had been allowed to handle him herself, preferably violently, and half grateful that she hadn’t been allowed to punch him in his sneering face. Unsure what to do now that the confrontation had passed, and still feeling slightly ill, she sat down heavily in her booth once more.

Loki slid into the place Adam had vacated, and quite comfortably picked up his abandoned and untouched beer for an absent sip as he started counting the money on the table. He seemed to feel Maddy staring at him after a moment, and looked up. “Oh, may I?” he asked with a vague gesture at his seat, though he sounded rather like he had already assumed that he may.

Maddy nodded, still staring at him and dimly aware that she should probably stop before he started thinking she was so overwhelmed by gratitude for his heroism that she had been struck dumb. “Er ... no, sure. It’s fine.”

He nodded back, though he had a pleased, self-satisfied little smile playing around the corners of his mouth which made Maddy realise something.

“You enjoyed that.”

Loki shrugged, finishing with the coins and moving onto the notes. “Fuck bullies,” was his short reply.

Maddy frowned, remember the stark lack of anything analogous to chivalry in his eyes during their silent communication earlier. “You don’t strike me as the heroic type.”

Loki stopped counting for a moment, barking out a laugh. He looked up at her again, and she caught genuine interest in his features. “Hot damn. You’re quick.”

Maddy wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she said instead, “I could have handled him myself.”

“Oh well, don’t go singing me a song of gratitude or anything,” said Loki sarcastically, going back to his counting.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Maddy amended hastily, “I just mean you shouldn’t have.”

“No, really, stop, this praise is just too high. It’ll go right to my head –”

“I mean,” Maddy interrupted, “I can look after myself.”

He laughed again, and for a moment was almost charming, before he said something which rather annoyed her. “Oh, I realised that the moment I saw you. You would have pulverised the little snotball. Why else would I put a stop to it?”

“You what?”

“Old One-Eye didn’t want a murder in his pub, especially not one he hadn’t even planned accordingly for,” Loki said. “That’s why he sent me over. He does that. Let’s just say I have a certain talent for handling delicate situations, a talent which he, all-mighty pub owner and sometimes less appreciative of the other habits of Yours Truly that he is, really rather lacks.”

Maddy digested this with a sceptical raised brow. “I’m guessing your knocking trick is part of that talent?”

“What? Oh, that.” He put the coins down and leaned back in his seat, spreading one arm over the back of the booth. He took another swig of the beer, and grinned. “That was just an illusion. A bit of stage glamour, if you will. You ever seen a play where it seems like the characters are talking just to you?”

Not quite following how this jump of logic fit in, Maddy was still pulling a sceptical face. “I don’t get it.”

“You know, when they look out into the audience to recite a soliloquy, but sometime it seems like they’re looking just at you.”

“Not really my thing.”

“But the play’s _the_ thing!”

Maddy was unimpressed, and apparently looked it, because Loki relented with a smile.

“They were looking at me,” he said, “not him.”

Maddy considered the implications of those stares anew, and was in turn newly confused. “But that would mean they ...”

“Hate me,” said Loki, quite carefree and bordering on gleeful, “oh yes. Yes, they absolutely hate my guts round these parts.”

“Even the regulars?”

“Generally the more regular they are, the more they hate me.”

“But you work here,” said Maddy. “How can they hate you if they’re regulars?”

“I know,” shrugged Loki blithely, “it’s a mystery. Especially when I’m so lovable.”

Maddy, however, sensed that there had to be a reason that fifty-odd people could all look at one person with such vitriol, only after him summoning their attention with a knock on the table. “What did you do?”

“Do?” Loki splayed a hand on his chest, apparently wounded. “You just assume that _I_ would have done something to upset all these lovely, paying customers?”

Maddy shot him a look, “You said it yourself. I’m quick.”

“I suppose you are,” Loki said, looking at her intently again. Maddy felt oddly hot under his gaze, which lingered on her before breaking away to send a playful glance around the pub. “You really want to know?”

Maddy sipped her warm drink, leaning back in her seat. She followed his gaze around the pub, landing on the bearded man and his wife. She nodded at them, “What about them? He definitely looked like he wouldn’t mind strangling you. And she looked like she’d happily join in.”

Loki seemed to consider them, as if trying to pick a place to begin. “Ah ... well. Difficult to know what to focus on.” He snapped his fingers, “I did use her hair to barter my way out of card-game debt once. Technically it is gold.”

“I’m guessing she wasn’t happy,” said Maddy, watching the woman finish her second glass of wine and begin prodding her husband to order her another.

“Oh, shrieking like a banshee. Don’t really see what all the fuss was about, myself, I mean I think I was very polite to detach the hair from her before I gave it to those gambling sharks.” Loki cast an innocent look down into his pint.

“Of course,” said Maddy wryly. “And her husband?”

“Oh, well ...” Loki’s eyes slid away from hers, and she saw a flicker of something in his features, quickly obscured by another sly smile. “That’s a long story. Quite a few stories, really. One does involve a very pretty dress though. Again, don’t know what he was complaining about. Anyone else would have been happy to wear it. Honestly, I was a bit offended.”

“And how about the ...” she motioned to the fluffy couple, not without distaste. Loki seemed to pick up on it.

“Ah, yes. Our resident hippies. This and that, not really anything that bad. I mean,” he said, “I did call the woman a nut in front of her boyfriend once. But in my defence, she had been crying for forty-five minutes because she’d just found an egg in her salad and thought she was guilty of eating a ‘baby that never was.’”

“And him?”

Loki smiled in apparent fond memory. “Oh, he’s always fun to fuck with. One of those people who gets frustrated very, very slowly, then absolutely loses it all at once. Ten out of ten, a delight to bother.” He came out of his reverie, adding, “I smashed his guitar when he played ‘Wonderwall’ for the fifth time on open mic night.”

“The blonde guy at the bar?”

“Beat him at darts while, er – I think the phrase is, drunk off my tits. Also called him a homophobe in front of the police once. To be fair, he is a homophobe.”

“The stocky one next to him?”

“Introduced him to my dog.”

“That woman over there?”

“Appropriated her jumper. It looked better on me anyway.”

“That girl under the telly?”

“Didn’t call her back.”

“That guy next to her?”

“Didn’t call him back.”

“The twins?”

Loki ummed and ahhed for a second, again trying to pin down some concrete offence of pranks past. “Him; pissed on the sword he bought at the Celtic Festival and brought in to show off to the boss. Her ... something to do with jewellery – oh, yeah, that was a messy one.” He cleared his throat, and launched into the tale, “I tell the boss her Instagram handle, he – having some idiotic thing for her that I get but, you know, I don’t really _get_ – flies off his own handle with jealousy because she’s getting so much attention from people online that she’s started getting sent things for free, he starts a smear campaign about how she’s a carrion, yada-yada ... she loses a deal getting sponsored by a jewellery company.” Loki huffed out a breath, as if the explanation had winded him. Maddy suppressed a smile, taking another sip of her cider.

“And that tall woman with the older guy?” she asked, honestly curious about the person who seemed to have held the biggest grudge against Loki, just judging by the look of complete and utter disgust she had thrown him earlier.

“Oh, that.” Loki looked actually uncomfortable.

“Ex?” Maddy attempted to joke.

“Er ... worse.” He knotted his hands in front of him, a sheepish grin on his face. “I set her father on fire.”

Maddy stared at him.

“He got better?” Loki offered. When Maddy continued to stare, he protested, “It was one time! And it was so long ago. Like ... a whole ... last week. It was a complete and total mostly-accident too!”

Maddy couldn’t help it any longer. She burst out laughing. She laughed, and laughed, even as Loki looked a little put out by her reaction.

“Needless to say, the boss isn’t going to be trusting me with Korean barbecue again,” he finished.

Maddy just kept laughing, because her night had been weird and wild, and her sister’s abusive piece of shit ex had groped her under a table, and now she’d just been distracted from all of that by someone who had managed, in quite creative ways, to piss off every person in a ten metre radius of himself except her.

“Hey,” Loki said, taking some affront. “Enough guffawing at my trauma, please.”

That just made Maddy laugh harder, and louder, and as she swung over the table, laughing, she heard Loki begin to join in. They laughed companionably, as if they had been accustomed to laughing with each other for centuries, or even longer. It was a new feeling for Maddy, and every time they began to quieten they caught each other’s eye and lost control again. Eventually Loki reached across the table to stop her at the elbow.

“Careful, Maddy,” he said, somewhat breathlessly, his eyes bright with the exertion of laughing and his grin mischievous, “you’ll make yourself some enemies.”

He was right – they’d attracted a few looks their way from the other patrons, who were sending more annoyed glances in Loki’s general direction. Though unbothered by the looks, Maddy quietened for another reason.

“You called me by my name,” she noted, looking back across the table at him. He hadn’t moved his hand back and the tips of his fingers were still touching her arm. She had a feeling he was aware of this. He seemed like the sort of person who was always aware of what his body was doing. “When you first showed up, you called me 'Maddy.' You must have been listening in for a while.”

Loki did retract his hand at that, and she felt a pang of something a little too close to disappointment.

“Getting blasted, more like. Your creepy little friend was loud enough.”

Maddy chose not to point out that Adam really hadn’t been. “And what exactly was with the whole boyfriend routine?”

Loki hid his face in his beer. “Had to disarm you somehow, didn’t I?” he said.

Maddy laughed, “Disarm me?”

“Well, clearly you were so angry you couldn’t see straight. And look, I don’t blame you, I rarely see ‘straight.’” He grinned another sly little grin into his glass.

Maddy rolled her eyes. He was avoiding the subject, badly, which made her suspect he didn’t wholly want to actually avoid it. “And just pretending that you knew me wasn’t enough? You had to put your arm around my waist too?”

Loki cleared his throat, pouting in mock-hurt again. “I’m starting to think you didn’t want my help ...”

“You did hold me awfully close ...”

“I had to be convincing –”

“And come to think of it, I could have sworn I saw you look at my –”

“Madam, please,” Loki interrupted with theatrical seriousness, staying her with one hand. “Are suggesting that I was _hitting on you_? What kind of lech would I be, posing as someone’s boyfriend while they were being harassed because I happened to find them attractive?”

“A multi-tasking lech, I guess,” Maddy shot back, taking a leaf from his book and hiding her own smirk in her cider glass.

Loki let out another short burst of bright laughter. Maddy just kept her smile to herself, watching him from across the table. She felt a strange sort of buzz in her chest, as if it wasn’t her having this daring conversation with someone who was as good as a stranger. She was aware, really, that she would be in the right to be disturbed by Loki’s pretence, especially, as he himself had pointed out, in the context it had been performed in. However, she was sure of two things. The first and most important was that she could have taken them both if she felt uncomfortable with having Loki’s arm around her waist. The second, and the one which was currently spurring said buzz in her chest, was that she hadn’t felt uncomfortable at all. She wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, if she was honest. The whole encounter felt as if someone else was playing her part – it definitely couldn’t be her. It was all a little too close to flirting.

Loki had been looking back at her for a few moments now, smiling faintly. It was strange sort of smile; a little crooked, not entirely decent, but warm. Maddy noticed a faded scar on his lower lip, and felt a rush in the bottom of her stomach. Something must have shown on her face, because he tilted his head with birdlike interest.

“Listen, Maddy ...” he began, but he was immediately prevented from finishing by the appearance of someone who, suddenly, Maddy wished was at least a little bit later.

“Maddy, I’m so – so sorry, I ran all – the way here, and – oh, er ... Who are you?”

Maddy looked away from the quickly fading light in Loki’s eyes to see her sister, rain-bedraggled, red-faced, and with her ridiculously huge bag half falling off her shoulder and almost pulling her hijab off with it. She was frowning at Loki, who was now halfway through a double-take that Maddy would have found hilarious had she not been distracted.

“I’m guessing – and this is just a working theory,” he said, looking between the two of them, “that you two are _at least_ first cousins.”

Maggie gave him an odd look. “I’m her sister, Maggie.”

“Maggie and Maddy,” said Loki, his eyes bouncing back and forth. “Doesn’t that get confusing?”

“Yes,” they answered at the same time.

Loki stared at them, blinking, then for just a moment, his face did something peculiar. In years to come, Maddy would never be able to get him to admit he had done it, but she would quite confidently stake a great deal of money on it. Loki blushed.

“Right, well ...” He stood up, sidling out of the booth. He swept half the money on the table into his gathered apron. “I’d better leave you to it before the boss gives me a hiding for drinking on the job.”

Maddy, who was still somewhat distracted by the fast disappearing pink spots on his cheeks, didn’t respond, but Maggie, who had just sat down and found Loki’s reclaimed beer in front of her, gestured at it in a disapproving sort of confusion.

“So, this is yours?” she asked, not looking impressed.

Loki stopped mid-step away and turned back to the beer. “So it is! I don’t suppose you’d like it?”

One look at Maggie’s face told him his answer, and he glanced at Maddy, who was currently trying to find her footing. Then he glanced back at the beer, seemed to have a moment in which he debated with himself, and then picked it up with the hand that wasn’t scrunching the money in his apron and skulled the remainder of the glass.

Both sisters watched him; Maggie with further distaste and Maddy feeling stupidly entranced by the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, and then immediately embarrassed and self-conscious when she realised she was staring. Loki slammed the empty glass back down and shot a triumphant grin at Maddy, which made her feel another heavy thrum of the buzz in her chest. Loki walked away, only stumbling a little.

“Well, that was stupid of him,” Maddy remarked.

Maggie stared at her, “Was he ...? Trying to impress you?”

“I think so,” said Maddy. “Idiot.” It already sounded a little fond, and Maggie apparently picked up on it.

“What’s been going on?” she said with suspicion. “Where did all this money come from?”

Maddy opened her mouth to answer, but it seemed her erstwhile companion was back.

“Sorry, forgot this,” Loki picked up the empty beer glass, waggling it with a shamefaced half-grin. “Silly me.”

“You also forgot half the money, you idiot,” Maddy pointed out, ignoring Maggie’s reaction.

“Oh no, that’s yours,” Loki said, waving a hand. “For your troubles.”

“Troubles, what troubles?” said Maggie, and was ignored again.

“Don’t be stupid, I can’t keep it.”

“No, really.” Loki pushed the small mound of coins and notes towards her and directed another buzz-spurring, slightly-indecent crooked smile at her. “On behalf of the establishment. We’d hate it if you never came back. Have a nice evening.”

With that he sauntered away again, looking extremely pleased with himself. Maddy snorted.

Maggie reached across the table and slapped her arm.

“Ow!”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”

“It’s nothing!”

“Maddy ...”

And so Maddy began to explain to Maggie exactly how her night had transpired so far, while also attempting to omit any reminder of her sister’s vile ex from the story.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, a very satisfied bartender was striding back to the bar, an apronful of change heavier and a spring in his step.

“Loki,” said his boss in acknowledgment as Loki slithered into the bar. “I’ve never seen you count coins so slowly.”

Loki, who was humming to himself and sorting the money into two jars, one labelled ‘One-Eye’ and the other ‘The Jam Tart Fund,’ ignored him.

“You were supposed to calm the situation down,” grumbled the barkeep, none too happy, “not get involved. We’ve lost a customer.”

Loki snorted. “A customer who was a complete prick. What’s the loss?”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you give her that. It’s not like you.”

“To give her what, charismatic and witty dinner conversation? I don’t know what you mean; I’m always a delight.”

“More than half the money.”

Loki finished topping up his tip jar and screwed the lid back on to stash away under the bar, safe from vengeful customers. The other he put back in its usual place. “Call it compensation,” he replied.

The barkeep said nothing, choosing instead to watch him with a curious, unfathomable gaze from his bright blue eye. Loki glanced back at Maddy and her sister, watching as Maddy talked fast about something or other, her golden-grey eyes flashing in the low light of the pub. The crooked smile pulled at his lips faintly.

The barkeep huffed out a quiet laugh, and Loki looked back at him in irritation.

“What?”

Again, his boss said nothing, just looked exceptionally wry.

“Oh, shut up, old man,” muttered Loki, reaching for some already sparkling glasses to polish.

“Do you want to send her a fruity cocktail too?”

“I said ‘shut up.’”

**Author's Note:**

> Figures that the first solo work I finally publish on Ao3 and the first fic I publish in years is a Runemarks fic. Special interest oh my special interest.
> 
> I'm thinking of doing a follow-up chapter or full fic to this 'verse but lmao we'll see how that pans out - although I do have a bit drafted out.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this, our fandom is sooooo frickin' tiny and even one word would probably make my day. Especially let me know if you have any constructive crit or would be interested in seeing a follow-up.


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